


Grace

by babiest



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-11-02 15:07:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10947045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babiest/pseuds/babiest
Summary: Tabris contemplates what marriage means to her.





	Grace

**Author's Note:**

> alistair leliana and my tabris are all in a happy healthy albeit a little weird relationship, no cheating or anything of the like going on here. i also like wrote this all in one go so fucking cheers to that

Tabris had never cursed marriage, even after all the events that occurred with it. she didn’t blame it on the act of marriage itself, she figures no matter what it would have happened anyways. It just so happened it took place during her wedding. In retrospect most shems didn't even consider elf marriages as proper marriages, no matter how many papers are signed and kept by their families or the chantry for that matter. Because they simply do not matter. 

When Tabris witnesses the wedding of her own lover to a women who still manages to give her a bitter taste in the back of her mouth she still does not curse marriage. She wonders if she was a pretty noble girl who had been trained to fight properly in the King’s army, instead of someone scrappy too thin too raw too much of an elf. She wonders if she could be the one being married. Leliana's slender hands wrap around her arm and she presses her lips to Tabris' cheek. When Tabris looks up Alistair looks at them both almost apologetically, Anora keeping her face hard as stone. Tabris thinks even if she was human she would not have been allowed to marry two people anyways. 

When Leliana holds her close and kisses her one last time she can't help but wonder if she'd be able to convince her to let her come with if she were her wife. There are no weights on the word but it feels heavy and grounds her in the way the word lover cannot. Lover is fleeting. To be her spouse would mean to be bound by their love for their rest of their lives. When she leaves to Orlais Tabris makes sure to cry only after she cannot see her departing figure. She wishes desperately she had argued harder to let her come along. 

Thoughts of marriage are stopped for awhile. Running around Denerim is very busy work, but getting called to Vigil's Keep meant traveling. And traveling means free time which allows minds wandering into places they should not be. She can't help but remember Alistair's hushed conversations with Anora from the week prior and the bile bubbling in her throat. She thinks of Anora's cold eyes so often. Next to Alistair's warm dark browns they seem even icier. Tabris has killed and she has killed many, but Anora is the only one who is a constant sticky reminder of things she has done. And she hates it. Why should she feel awful for murdering the man who threw her family to the dogs. It's disgusting and it makes her feel disgusting. She hates Anora and her cold eyes and her gaunt face and her hands reaching out to touch her husband. 

lover. 

Her lover. She feels like lava is pouring out her throat when she stops the caravan to make herself vomit on the side of the road. Old habits die hard. And she hopes that this habit in particular dies very soon. 

Alistair arrives at Vigil's Keep awhile after she had. Here she sees another lover who would not let her convince him to come with her. She wanted to go to Weisshaupt. She thinks she would have, it probably would have been more fun than dirtier looks from rich shems in Orlais. Which she was denied a trip to anyways. He talks but she can't focus much, the ringing in her ears does not stop and she finds it hard to keep focusing on things. Everything being bright and colorful and most importantly loud. Alistair pulls her aside for a moment afterwards, and takes her hand to tentatively kiss her gloved knuckles. She does not smile but she does not need to, he knows her well enough by now. He brings his hands to cup her face and whisper apologies that no longer really matter to her. She simply says she's very tired. And he smiles, the smile that is gentle and exclusively for her and their other lover who seems a century away now. She is not able to process what he's been saying. But he says "I love you" and it's all she really needs to hear. He kisses her one last time, and then he is gone. Because lovers are fleeting and rarely make promises they can keep. 

She thinks of her parents as very lucky people. Her father was struck with pure luck when he learned he was able to marry the girl he had been fawning over for years. Her father denies this when she asks him directly. But everyone in the alienage remembers, and everyone in the alienage has no sense of privacy. Her mothers old journals also do not lie, while keeping records of her old lovers there were always mentions of a twiggy boy with muddy blonde hair who's face could turn red the fastest Adaia had ever seen in her life. And her documenting her shock and pleasant surprise to see him being the groom on her wedding day. He had made her very happy. She wrote that down a lot. Mihari assumed it was to remind her of her shock over the fact that a plain man like her father had won her heart over completely. When she rereads her mother's old journal in her room in Vigil's Keep she can't help but wonder about what could have been with the girl on her wedding day with her handsome groom and her mother's boots and a dull knife hidden on the inside of her clothes. She wonders a lot.

Many years pass, as time does. She is older now even if she does not particularly look it. Her father laughed and said she had her mother's round face, Mihari had no interest in looking like a baby forever but sometimes it's just how things are. Both of her lovers are people in ridiculous positions of power. She feels as if it's a cosmic joke. On her right is the king of Fereldan and on her left is the Divine herself. And what a story it is to tell when you can say you've have them both in bed at once. She has not been able to speak to either of them lately. Searching for the cure takes a considerable amount of time, and she wonders half the time what the point to it even is at all. But then she remembers there is a point to it. For the good of humanity or the wardens or whatever. She screams about retiring into an open field and her mabari howls alongside with her.

When she comes home, when she returns to Alistair and Leliana with the biggest smile on her face and the most excited she's ever been in her life she thinks. She thinks then she'll ask them both to marry her, Chantry be damned. She deserves it after all. And if she can stop a blight in both the world and in her own blood who in all of Thedas is to stop her from taking what she's wanted for ten years.


End file.
